SAJAforum

CONTROVERSY: An Edisonian Responds to Time's Joel Stein

Last week, Joel Stein, a Time essayist, wrote a piece about the changes in the New Jersey town of Edison. It been widely read and widely commented upon (see some of those reactions below, including a Time response to a WSJ article about this). SAJAforum was sent this guest post by RADHIKA MARYA, a recent graduate of the Journalism School at Columbia University and a member of SAJA. She is currently interning for NPR in Washington D.C. She's @RadTV on Twitter.

=> If you have a comment or observation about Stein's or Marya's pieces, please use the comments section below. Our thanks to SAJAer Shefali Kulkarni for her help editing this post.

Welcome to Edison, New Jersey.

Population: Brown people. Everywhere.

This is not an original observation. Edison’s heavy South Asian (mostly Indian) population is world renowned — noted in cultural studies textbooks and acknowledged by the South Asian diaspora. And this topic recently became the subject of Joel Stein’s Time magazine piece, “My Own Private India.”

In this little essay dated July 5, Stein — who grew up in Edison — laments the transformation of his hometown, referring to places like the Pizza-Hut-turned-Indian-sweet-shop. He goes on to make several gross generalizations about Indian-Americans, while waxing nostalgic about his youth.

As an Indian-American journalist, who spent her adolescence in Edison and graduated from Stein’s high school, I’m offended. I’m also not exactly sure if Stein has a point.

I started out livid when I first read the piece. I usually have a tendency to be less-than-politically-correct. I thought the outrage over Gandhi’s depiction on the MTV cartoon Clone High, in 2003, was silly. My relatively multicultural group of friends and I joke around about race all the time.

But even if Stein thought he was writing a hilarious little piece about how his once-white town is overrun by Indians, he just ended up sounding unfunny, uninformed and racist.

UK: BBC Asian Network on the Chopping Block?

When the BBC Asian Network was launched back in 2002 as a nationwide digital radio station throughout Britain, the BBC's then-radio director, Jenny Abramsky, called it "one of the most important things the BBC has ever done."  Since then, the Asian Network has developed a loyal following, both in Britain and, via the internet, around the world.

[Because of immigration patterns, "Asian" is the UK word for South Asians.]

Today, however, the Asian Network's future is very much in doubt. On the eve of British general elections, a strategy review by BBC management proposes major changes in the BBC's operations -- including the closure of the Asian Network (and another network, BBC 6 Music) altogether.

HEALTH: Research on South Asian mothers

Writer Ryan Biltstein has a cover story in Miller-McCune magazine about important research about race and health: "After decades of research, Arline Geronimus concludes that the long-term stress of living in a white-dominated society 'weathers' blacks, making them age faster than their white counterparts."

The piece is fascinating and covers a lot of important questions and I suggest you read it in full here.

Meanwhile, there's a nugget about South Asians buried in the piece (emphasis mine):

Those disparities don't subside on the way up the income ladder. Geronimus and then-graduate student Cynthia Colen, now a professor at Ohio State University, led a study showing that upwardly mobile white women who grew up poor improved their birth outcomes, but similar income increases didn't help black mothers much at all. Other researchers have established that the health of Latino immigrants declines as they stay in America longer and improve their lots in life, and that South Asian Indian mothers, who have socioeconomic profiles comparable to whites, suffer from birth outcomes as poor as those of low-income blacks.

Anyone have more info on this particular research? Please post in the comments section below.

BLOGS: Browngirl's Beautyblog, for those other fleshtones

When I was about eight my family visited India, and my dad being the social animal that he is, packed us into the car regularly so that we could meet every possible person in our known extended family, from first cousins to third cousins, thrice removed. In Kerala, on a July day, that means you're either driving  around in the rain, or worse, on an impossibly muggy day, where every inch of skin and clothing sticks to the vinyl seats of the Ambassador, and loudly peels off when you so much as shift in your place. And as the only boy among three siblings, I was always assigned the worst seat in the car: the middle of the front seat, wedged in between my dad and the hired driver, a location entirely deprived of any air flow, where the torpor was periodically broken by the flailing elbow of the driver, as he shifted gears.

Yesterday, while chatting with a Latina colleague about the politics of skin tone in our respective communities, I was reminded of those long, long trips, and of one destination in particular. It was some relative--I can never remember the connection--and he was old, and crotchety, and as we all sat around, drinking our respective cups of tea and Horlicks, he glared at me and my sisters, and pointing to one of them, asked my parents in Malayalam: "All of you are so fair. How did this one turn out such a darkie?"

After I told my friend that story, we flipped through a new issue of India Abroad, which I had on my desk. In the matrimonial section, I'd say maybe every 5th listing mentioned "fair" skin. No one used the terms "dusky" or "wheatish." But it made me wonder: if someone doesn't say their son or daughter is fair, does that imply they're wheatish or dusky, or maybe even dark?

Maybe Sumi Raghavan can tell us. Sumi's a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Fordham University, here in New York. To periodically take her mind off her dissertation, she started "Browngirl's Beautyblog," because, as she told me, "there's a real gap in the amount of information available about beauty products for women of brown color, and as an informed consumer with a lot of experience, I thought I may have something interesting to say about it."

In her first post, on May 29, Sumi describes her skin as a "deep brown":

"There is something unique and beautiful about the golden brown of Indian skin.  So why on Earth does it feel like nobody is making beauty products for us, for our pigments, for our textures, and our needs?"

Elsewhere, she provides a DIY recipe for turmeric facial application ("I assumed they were jaundiced or something"), and gives a shout-out to Thevi Thambirajah, a Sri Lankan who launched Thevi Cosmetics.

Here she tells us more about why she started the site:

ETHNICITY: Texas legislator wants Asians to Americanize their names

When I was younger I thought it a bit unseemly for Indians to have Anglicized names like "Sam Patel" or "Ken Singh." Who's that guy trying to fool? It felt like a nomenclatural comb over.

In time, I got over it. The fact is, names like that aren't all that common in the desi community in the first place, and probably have/had their utility among certain segments, eg., business people making inroads in rural America and the like (and of course, politicians). It's not like Jewish America, where there are a whole lot of people whose Eastern European surnames were shortened back on Ellis Island.

Which is why the Betty Brown furor seems so anachronistic. Brown is a Republican member of the Texas state legislature, and during a legislative hearing on voter ID standards, she said a couple things that have gotten her in trouble. Scroll to 3:23 of this clip for the money quote.

She was addressing Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans. Ko's point, which he made repeatedly--and which I ask him about, lower down--was that many Asian American immigrants have problems in this country because they often have two sets of IDs: one that lists, say, their original, Chinese-sounding name (transliterated into English) and another that has an Anglicized name (like Ken). This causes problems when they go to vote.

But Brown wasn't really listening:

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

The issue was politicized before Brown even made her comments because Texas Republicans want to prevent voter fraud and Democrats say the actual occurrence of voter fraud is negligible, and that this is just a veiled attempt at suppressing votes from minorities, who tend to vote for Democrats.

But her remarks have taken the issue in a whole 'nother direction. She's received press in the San Francisco Chronicle, UPI, the UK's Telegraph. There's now a really fun "Betty Brown Name Generator"--I plugged in "Arun" and was told my new name is Roy "Chicken and Dumplings" Brown. If you try Shivashankara Venkataraghavan you get Billy-Ray "Golden Corral" Brown.

AUTHORED: Minal Hajratwala on "Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents"

This is the second edition of our Authored series. The first was written by Dilara Hafiz, who wrote "The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook" with her two kids. The point of this series, as we noted earlier, is to allow authors the chance to hold forth on the unseemly promotional end of getting a book out. Given the economic downturn, and the onslaught of social networking media like Facebook, the possibilities of marketing a book have contracted greatly on one hand while expanding on the other. If you're an author or even someone with a book lurking in the back of their mind, we're hoping this will become a good resource. And if you have a book coming out soon, please let us know.

Minal Hajratwala's "Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents" is coming out on March 18, from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (here's her website). Minal's a former journalist with the San Jose Mercury News, as well as a self-described "performer, poet and queer activist," who documented how and why her extended family left their ancestral lands in Gujarat for the far corners of the earth, over the course of a century.

Here she writes about how she's doing the standard book readings as well as exploiting social networking sites and developing a video trailer on her book. She also gets into the advantages of being an author with a journalistic background, and the perils of wearing a red sari for your promotional photo.

Marketing "Leaving India" - by Minal Hajratwala

Days away from the launch of my first book, yikes!  Thanks to Arun for asking me to share here on SAJAforum about the inner workings of a first-time author's book tour process. 

Women authors often use the giving birth metaphor. I might too were it not for the fact that both my editor and my agent are literally giving birth to their babies during this period -- one down, one to go. I like to claim that my book has inspired their fertility, since both of them are actively increasing the size of the desi diaspora. It's all about me right now, no?

The tour

So I'm doing a five-city tour in March and April that consists mainly of bookstore/library events and mainstream media interviews, with a couple of wine-and-hors d'oeuvre evenings thrown in for fun.  I'm planning more community-based events/collaborations/readings as a kind of second round, along with other cities.  And I'm doing community-based media with my various communities as it makes sense: alumni magazine, Asian Am, South Asian, queer, etc. 

We've managed some creative leveraging of funds, so I'll use a combination of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publicity budget and a SAWCC/Poets & Writers stipend to come to NY in early March, two weeks before the book launch. That will allow me to be part of the SAWCC lit fest event (http://www.sawcc.org/events) on March 7, which I wouldn't have been able to do if just going with the publisher-subsidized trip only.  I'll also use my extra time in New York to do things like speaking at a diaspora studies seminar at NYU.  

I have a great publicist and it's definitely a collaboration, as many of the venues she has booked are ones where I have an "in." Keeping track of all the logistics and preparations feels pretty much like a full-time job for me right now. We chose the cities using a combination of factors; NY and SF were obvious, with LA, DC, and Toronto rounding out the pack. Toronto was a smart addition by the VP of Marketing who felt the huge South Asian community there made it a good choice.

POLITICS: Bobby Jindal gets some "slum love"

The reviews for Bobby Ji have been a little less than fabulous: his Tuesday night response to Obama's speech to Congress has been derided on the right, left and center, and the Facebook group "Bobby Jindal is Kenneth the Page" has 13,538 members as of this moment--that's the group's clever little photo composite of Kenneth, a character from 30 Rock, and the guv.

But don't count the man out. If anything, he may inadvertently get some sympathy after the exchange below, between talk show host Curtis Sliwa and RNC Chairman Michael Steele. Via Politico:

SLIWA: Now, using a little bit of that street terminology, are you giving him any Slum love, Michael?

STEELE: (laughter)

SLIWA: Because he is — when guys look at him and young women look at him — they say oh, that's the slumdog millionaire, governor. So, give me some slum love.

STEELE: I love it. (inaudible) ... some slum love out to my buddy. Gov. Bobby Jindal is doing a friggin' awesome job in his state. He's really turned around on some core principles — like hey, government ought not be corrupt. The good stuff ... the easy stuff.

So..... slumdog = brown??

If anyone could translate that exchange for us, much would our appreciation be.

See earlier: "After Obama speech, Prime Time for Jindal"

AUTHORED: Dilara Hafiz on "The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook"

Introducing SAJAforum's new "Authored" series. The idea here is to have writers tell us the back story of their book--how it came to be--as well as the nasty, unwriterly business of getting out there and selling their wares. We think this will accomplish two things: get the word out about new or upcoming releases, and educate other authors (and aspiring ones) about the biz.

Authors, editors, publicists: talk to us.

Our inaugural book is "The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook," by the mother-daughter-son combo of Dilara, Yasmine and Imran Hafiz, who are Pakistani-American. The book is being released on February 10, by Simon & Schuster, but as you'll see in Dilara's account, the work only got picked up by S&S after the family initially self-published it. She also provides some great insights into the marketing of the book, setting up a website, getting blurbs and how going after the NYT can in fact pay off, handsomely.

The Story Behind "The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook" - by Dilara Hafiz, Yasmine Hafiz and Imran Hafiz

The Idea...

“You’re writing a non-fiction book about Islam in America…with your two teenagers?  Are you crazy?”  This was the standard response I received from various friends and relatives - but I’m grateful that it was the occasional comment of “Oh, that sounds interesting - I think you guys could do a great job!”  that we listened to.

The Why…

Life in post 9/11 America has been challenging for America Muslims: the ‘random’ searches at the airport, the impression that hijab = oppression, that Muslims are "the other." We heard so many misconceptions about Islam in the media, yet no coherent Muslim voices ever got airtime.  Where are the Moderate Muslims?  Well, we’re fairly moderate - maybe we should speak up.  So in 2002 we sent out a survey to 44 Islamic full-time and Sunday Schools across the country. The 150 responses which we received displayed such a variety of opinions and stories that we felt motivated to continue with our project - of not only writing an educational and entertaining handbook for the average American Muslim teenager, but also an enlightening guide to the basics of Islam for non-Muslims who are curious about Islam or want to pursue an interfaith dialogue. 

The How...

After three years of writing, re-writing, editing and surreptitious editing (remember, we’re 3 authors here) - our manuscript was finally ready.  Full of quizzes, lists of Do’s & Don’ts, results of the teen questionnaire - we knew we wanted the book to appeal to teens, so it needed to have pictures, humor and variety.  But the response from Muslim publishers?  Too progressive - you have pictures of girls without headscarves - haraam!  The response from mainstream publishers?  Your audience is too narrow, your treatment of religion is too humorous, your information content is interesting…but we’re going to pass on this manuscript. The project was badly stalled, until my Dad decided to go on Hajj in 2006. 

UK: Mixed-race marriages on the rise, but still low among desis

We don't post too much on the UK scene--should've noted the Prince Harry "Paki" comment fracas--but I found this article in the Indian Express interesting:

There is an increasing number of people of Indian origin entering in relationships with white partners, prompting a new study to conclude that in future some ethnic groups may well disappear.

One in 10 children in Britain now lives in a mixed-race family, which raises the prospect of a non-racist Britain, according to the study conducted at the University of Essex.

Young Britons are 6 times more likely to marry someone of a different ethnicity, according to the study. But look at how much lower the current rate is for Indians, and particularly for Pakistanis:

Over the past 14 years the number of children of Caribbean heritage with one white parent has risen from 39 per cent to 49 per cent. Among the Indian population it has increased from 3 per cent to 11 per cent, for Pakistanis from 1 per cent to 4 per cent, and for Chinese from 15 per cent to 35 per cent.

The report isn't out yet but you can read more about it at the institute's site.

POLITICS: Update on Ashwin Madia's race

We have written here before about Ashwin Madia, the 30-year-old former Iraq veteran running for Congress as a Democrat in Minnesota (our first item was exactly a year ago, we wrote about charges of race- and gay-baiting recently and our latest was about how a Pakistani-American group had endorsed the Indian-American).

With two days to go in the closely-contested race against Republican Erik Paulsen, here's an update. From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

The race, for a rare open U.S. House seat in a demographically changing district, has been hotly contested. A poll by Survey USA earlier this week showed Republican Erik Paulsen with 45 percent support, DFLer Ashwin Madia with 44 percent and David Dillon of the Independence Party at 9 percent.

An estimated $8 million will be spent by the candidates and independent groups by the end of the campaign, much of it on television ads and direct mail.

And much of that has been negative, part of the high-stakes clutter that has combined with a well-financed presidential race and a bitter U.S. Senate campaign. But there's been enough to go around in the district by itself.

Recently the Republican congressional campaign committee was accused of darkening Madia's skin tone in an ad (Madia is the son of parents who moved to the United States from India). Republicans have denied it.

Paulsen, a onetime Minnesota House majority leader, has been accused in one ad of being a career politician, looking out for fat cats who are lighting their cigars with dollar bills.

Here is a news report from KARE-TV in Minneapolis:

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